


Learning Domesticity

by unfolded73



Series: Fumbling Towards Ecstasy [2]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Pete's World
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-19
Updated: 2009-10-19
Packaged: 2018-01-03 02:09:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1064461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unfolded73/pseuds/unfolded73
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set immediately after Testing, (and thus before And So I Dare to Hope), the part-human Doctor begins to learn the domestic approach on his second full day living with Rose.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Learning Domesticity

**Author's Note:**

> Written for xebgoc, who requested Rose/Ten II, smutty, sweet and exploratory as they learn one another and their environment. xebgoc won my services during the Support Stacie Fanfic Auction, September 2009. This auction raised money to help pay for life-saving cancer treatments for someone with no insurance.

As he woke up, he was already touching her. 

An erotic dream melted away and the Doctor felt something like an electric shock to realise that it wasn’t just a dream, that he was nuzzling along Rose’s clavicle, smelling the sleepy scent from her skin, one hand on her breast and one just above the curve of her bum. Most human males were probably used to waking up with an erection, but he gasped at the sensation of his hard cock brushing against Rose’s belly.

The Doctor tried to pull away from her, his conscious brain only now starting to catch up to what his body had been doing while his subconscious was in charge. He was fairly sure molesting Rose in her sleep was not one of the liberties he should be taking, whether or not she had allowed him to become her lover just a few short hours ago. Surely it would demonstrate him to be the sex-crazed pervert that he was fairly certain this part-human version of him was.

But then Rose’s hand curled around his erection, her mouth opening against his neck, her wet tongue licking at his skin, and the Doctor considered the notion that perhaps they were both sex-crazed perverts, and perhaps that was very, very brilliant.

After several moments of this intimate touching, Rose started to giggle. “Did I just randomly start fondling you in my sleep?”

“I don’t know,” the Doctor confessed, kissing her shoulder. “I was dreaming of you, and I woke up with my hands all over you. So I think _I_ started it.” He moved a hand down between her legs, and Rose sighed as he slid a finger into her folds. 

“If you did, I’m not complaining,” Rose said, her hips bucking against his fingers. 

“I can tell,” he said, enjoying how wet and hot and slippery she was. How his touches made her gasp, her legs opening wider for him. 

“Inside me,” Rose whispered after a while. “Want you ...”

The Doctor pulled away from her, leaning over the edge of the bed and groping on the floor for the condoms Rose had dropped there earlier. He fumbled with one, his arousal making him clumsy in his haste, but he managed. Rose grasped his cock, squeezing it as he moved over her, situating himself between her legs. She guided him, positioning him so that with a simple thrust of his hips, he sank into her easily.

Rose bent her knees, her heels resting lightly on the backs of his legs. “So good,” she gasped as he began moving in and out of her. “Doctor. _Yes._ ”

He kissed her with desperate swipes of his tongue, hands clenching against the mattress as he fucked her. Straightening his arms and looking at Rose’s face, the Doctor was overcome with wonder for a moment that he was _here_ , doing _this_ with her. In all that time he’d been missing her, he’d never dared to hope they would ... well. A lot of things had turned out in ways he could never have imagined.

“Faster,” she said, her fingers pressing into his bum. “Need you ... deeper ...”

He made a noise that he feared was terribly undignified, following Rose’s directions as best he could. He was going to come soon, he could feel it like a delicious heat in his groin, and he hoped Rose was close too. The pace escalated and escalated, and Rose was panting, repeating the word “yes,” and there was no slowing things down for him now. With a yelp, he climaxed, but he continued to move his pelvis against hers, and then silently thanked every deity he’d ever heard of when Rose cried out shortly thereafter.

Once they had collapsed on their backs, prophylactic disposed of, breathing slowly subsiding, he started thinking. “Promise me,” the Doctor said, rolling over to look at Rose, “that you’ll tell me if I’m not doing something right in bed. If things aren’t as good for you as they could be.”

Her resulting smile was wide. “Things are amazing.” She turned toward him, combing her fingers through his chest hair. “I hope you don’t think I’m too insatiable, it’s just, I wanted ... for so long I wanted ...”

He imagined her as the young woman she’d been on the TARDIS, fantasizing about sex with him. “I’m sorry.” What was he apologising for? For not bedding her back then? For losing her before he could muster the courage? “And I don’t think that you’re ... I mean, I’m a bit—no, _a lot_ overwhelmed with how much I want you physically.”

“I’m glad,” she said, but she was frowning. Probably thinking about the other Doctor. Wondering if that meant he hadn’t wanted her before. The Doctor considered trying to explain it, but she didn’t ask, and he wasn’t sure if he was capable of the explanation anyway.

“I love you,” he murmured, his eyes drifting closed.

There was a long pause before her answer came back to him. “I love you too.”

 

*** 

The next time the Doctor awoke, he was alone. Listening to the quiet flat, he could make out the sound of the shower running in the bathroom. He rolled over, reaching out to touch the indentation that Rose had left in her pillow. A thousand images flooded his mind, from the sight of her running toward him in that street to the sight of her on top of him in bed, naked and beautiful. He didn’t really know who he was, but he knew that he loved her. If anything was going to get him through the next few days, the first days of this strange, new life, it would be that.

Rolling out of bed, he realised that all of his new clothes were in the guest bedroom. He padded across the hall naked, stretching out his spine as he went. The Doctor rooted through the heap of clothes that had been dumped on the bed until he found the dressing gown that Rose had picked out for him. Brown, he noted with interest, like his old coat. Frowning, it occurred to him that was one more thing he’d have to go without now.

He pulled off the tags and shrugged the dressing gown over his shoulders, knotting it as he walked toward the kitchen. Might as well make himself useful, he thought, opening the refrigerator and examining the groceries they had bought the day before. 

By the time Rose emerged, freshly washed and dressed, he had scrambled eggs and toast and tea ready for her. He’d only had one mishap, involving his thumb and the toaster, and he pulled the burned digit out of his mouth and grinned widely at her. “Good morning.”

Rose flushed. The Doctor was struck with the sudden fear that, seeing him the cold light of day after the night before, she regretted what had transpired between them. Maybe she thought it had all happened too soon.

“Morning,” Rose said shyly, sitting at the table. He sat down across from her and they ate in silence for a while. “So I thought we could leave to go over to Mum and Pete’s after lunch,” Rose said after a sip of tea.

The Doctor flinched internally. “We’re still doing that, then?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t we be?” Rose smirked. “Did you think we were going to spend all day in bed together?”

He raised his eyebrow at that. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

She laughed briefly. “Not bad, of course not, but I promised Mum, remember? And I feel like I owe her, after everything I’ve put her through.”

Something occurred to the Doctor for the first time. “She thought you were going to leave this universe and never come back,” he said.

Rose looked away with a guilty expression. “Well, yeah. I never made a secret of what I was working on, or what I wanted to do if it was successful.”

The Doctor thought about everything he’d asked her to give up when she left home to travel with him, and he felt a wash of pity for Jackie. “That must have been hard for her.”

“We mostly didn’t talk about it. She had Tony to focus on, and I think that made it easier.”

He remembered how easily she’d made the decision all those years ago in the lever room, to leave her family on the other side of Void and stay with him, how it had made his hearts swell with a mixture of relief and fear, to have her by his side after all, after he’d resigned himself to giving her up. The emotional roller coaster of those few minutes had made losing her in the end that much worse. 

“Are you sorry, being back?” he asked, bracing himself for the answer.

Rose opened her mouth and closed it again. “I ... no, of course I’m not. I mean, it’s unexpected. But getting to see Tony grow up, that’s a luxury I never thought I’d have, and that’s brilliant. And of course I’m glad to get to stay near Mum and Pete.” She reached across the table and took his hand. “You and I have a chance at this life together now, and honestly, I can hardly wrap my brain around it, but it’s good, yeah?”

He couldn’t let up. “But you’d rather be with him,” he said flatly. He’d been so magnanimous about the Time Lord the night before, as they were poised to make love. He’d felt the generosity that comes from overwhelming, unexpected joy. Today, faced with burning his finger on the toaster and the fear that Rose had regrets, the bitterness toward his counterpart had returned. 

“He left me,” Rose said, her anger betrayed in her trembling voice. “Left _us_. It’s going to be a long time before I can forgive that. I think if I saw him now, I’d punch him in the face.” The Doctor laughed, but it was hollow, and he pretended not to notice that she hadn’t really answered the question.

After breakfast, Rose sat down to work on her laptop computer, leaving him at somewhat loose ends. He took a shower and shaved, examining his face in the steamy mirror for a long time. This was it, the only face he’d ever have. He’d see it every day, slightly older each time. He’d always liked this version of himself, always thought he was rather dishy. Now he had to worry about whether he’d age well.

When he dressed, it was in a new jumper and trousers, along with the trainers he’d had on when they arrived in this universe. He felt naked without his bigger-on-the-inside pockets, but he didn’t suppose he’d need all those things just for an afternoon at Rose’s parents’ house. At least, he probably wouldn’t. He reminded himself that he still needed to inventory the pockets of the blue suit; he knew he didn’t have the sonic screwdriver or his specs, but maybe he’d managed to get away with something useful. 

A messenger rang up to the flat, delivering all of the papers that Pete Tyler had used his connections to get for the Doctor. He glanced at the passport bearing the name “John Smith,” then tucked the rest of it away in the billfold Rose had bought him the day before. He’d never minded having an alias when it was simply something ephemeral, appearing briefly on the psychic paper. Now that it existed in these more permanent forms, he found that the name irritated him. “I’m the Doctor,” he whispered, throwing the passport in a desk drawer and slamming it closed.

 

***

Rose drove them to the Tyler mansion, making small talk about the things in London she had found to be different. 

“In those first couple of months, it really bugged me when I couldn’t remember; I’d see a chain of coffee shops, just for example, and I’d think, ‘Did they have those in my universe?’ I would obsess about it. It was like, I needed to keep them separate, I needed to _know_ the things that were wrong about this universe, because this universe was wrong. It wasn’t mine, I wasn’t staying.” She swallowed awkwardly, her eyes trained on the road. 

“But you stopped feeling that way?” he asked.

“After ... after seeing you in Norway, that first time ... I gave up hope for a while. Figured it didn’t matter, because I was stuck here.” Rose sighed. “My Torchwood doctor put me on antidepressants. That helped, much as I hated needing it.”

“I’m so sorry, Rose,” he said, his heart aching for her.

“Not your fault. Anyway, working on the dimension cannon helped. Even though it was a long shot, even though it mostly didn’t work – and now I know it wouldn’t have worked without the Reality Bomb – it still gave me hope. Made me feel useful, like I had some control over my life.” Her face pinched bitterly at the last, and they passed the rest of the ride in silence.

Jackie pounced on them the second they walked through the door. “There you are!” She hugged Rose as if it had been weeks, not two days, since they had seen each other. The Doctor started to move past them, holding out a hand to Pete, when he was attacked by Jackie. She hugged him tightly, nattering on about something while she kissed him on both cheeks. It was all so familiar, and he took a moment to remember the last time she had greeted him this way. Pulling away, he made a show of wiping her kisses from his face. Best not let on that he sort of liked the affection, in a weird way.

Pete was watching, smirking slightly. “So, Doctor, how were your first couple of nights in your new universe?” he asked him.

Of course, the first thing that popped into his mind was the way he’d spent the second night, and even the Doctor knew better than to think that sex with Rose was an appropriate conversation topic for her parents. He pulled on his ear and stammered. “Um ... fine! Yeah, good. First couple of nights were good.” He could see Rose rolling her eyes and shaking her head in his peripheral vision.

Looking for a distraction, the Doctor spotted a small, blond boy lurking in the shadows behind his parents. He walked over to Tony and knelt down.

“Hi, Tony, I’m the Doctor.”

“Hi,” Tony replied, his voice quiet and hesitant. Eyes darting to the side, he scuttled away, running to Rose and wrapping his arms around her legs. The Doctor stood up and sighed. Looked like Tony was going to be a tough nut to crack.

Rose picked Tony up, hugging him tight. “It’s okay, Tony. You remember me telling you about the Doctor, yeah?”

Tony eyed him suspiciously. “Where’s your spaceship?”

The Doctor scratched the back of this neck. “Well, I don’t have it anymore. Which means, I’m going to stay here with Rose, and I’ll have time to devote to other things. Such as, just for example, Snakes and Ladders. Do you like Snakes and Ladders?”

Tony shrugged. “Yeah. I like playing Wii better.”

“Ah! Well, would you like to show me what your favourite Wii game is?” the Doctor asked him. Tony thought for a second before nodding and squirming out of Rose’s arms. He ran off toward the back of the house and the Doctor followed him.

Thus, the Doctor spent over an hour playing virtual bowling with a three-year-old, cheering on the little boy’s successes and groaning in an exaggerated fashion at his own blunders. He looked up at one point to see Rose watching him, a smile teasing at the corners of her mouth. She gave him a tiny wave before ducking back out.

After a while, Tony lost interest in the game and ran off to do something else. The Doctor shut off the telly and ventured into the kitchen, where the rest of the family was gathered around cups of tea. Jackie offered him a cup, and he accepted gratefully. 

“Doctor,” Pete said, “mind if I talk to you in my office a moment?”

“Not at all,” he said, following Pete down the hall to a sumptuous, wood-panelled room dominated by a large desk.

“Can I offer you something stronger?” Pete said, opening a cabinet and pulling out a bottle of Scotch.

“Best not; I seem to have a very different tolerance for alcohol in this body,” the Doctor said sheepishly.

“Suit yourself,” Pete said, pouring himself a small glass and putting the bottle away. “Did Rose ask you about Torchwood? I’d like you to come work with us there,” he continued, getting right to the point.

“She did.” The Doctor paced over to the window and looked out. “You know what the Torchwood in my universe did. What they were responsible for.”

“Of course I do. But that’s them, not us. Rose has been working for Torchwood almost since the day she came here. She wouldn’t do that if she didn’t think that we did good work.”

“No.” But the dimension cannon had been reckless, he thought, much as he wanted to love that Rose had done it. He remembered his time with UNIT, while he was exiled to Earth. He supposed this wasn’t so different. “I won’t carry a gun.”

“Wouldn’t ask you to. It’s your brain I want, not your trigger finger.” Pete joined him at the window. “I know we won’t always see eye to eye, but I want that. I want to surround myself with smart people who aren’t yes-men. Who’ll disagree with me.”

“That’s very wise,” the Doctor admitted.

“You’ll have access to all the archives, all the labs. Senior Technology Consultant, I’m creating the position for you. You’ll have an office and a car. What do you say?” Pete’s hand fell heavily on the Doctor’s shoulder.

“I suppose I can’t say no to all that, can I?” He reached out to shake Pete’s hand. “I accept.”

“Good man,” Pete said. He held onto the Doctor’s hand after their handshake was over. “One more thing.” His eyes held the Doctor’s. “Rose may not be my daughter, but I love her as if she were. I watched her grieve for you, and I watched her pick herself up and make a life. I’m glad that she found you, and that ... things transpired in such a way that you could stay with her. But just know, if you hurt her, you’ll have to answer to me.”

The Doctor swallowed. “Blimey. That’s almost as terrifying as the thought of what I’d face from Jackie.” Pete laughed, letting go of his hand. “I love her, Pete. I’ll do everything in my power to make her happy.”

Pete clapped him on the back. “Glad to hear it.”

“Don’t suppose I could still take you up on your offer of a drink, could I?”

***  
Jackie had asked them to stay for tea, and Rose had accepted with a guilty glance at the Doctor. He didn’t mind staying, though; as much as being alone with Rose held a lot of appeal, it also made him nervous. He didn’t really know how to be someone’s ... boyfriend, he supposed the term was. It was inevitable that he was going to muck it up in some way or another.

He was pondering all the ways that he could potentially destroy his relationship with Rose when the object of his thoughts came up behind him. “Come with me,” she whispered, pulling him out of the kitchen during a moment when Jackie was distracted by Tony’s whining.

Without looking back at him, Rose led him to a nondescript room at the end of a long hallway. Once they were inside, Rose closed the door. Turning the lock, she looked at him with a predatory expression on her face.

“What ... what are we doing?”

Rose grinned. “Just been wanting to get you alone for hours.” She sidled up close to him, pressing her body against his. “And now we’re staying for tea, and it’ll be that much longer until we get home, and I thought ...” She shrugged one shoulder. 

“You thought?” the Doctor said, breathing a little bit faster.

“I thought with all the commotion in the kitchen right now, no one would miss us if we disappeared for a few minutes.” And with that she kissed him, her mouth hot and wet against his, the kiss pleasingly sloppy. He slid his hands down to her bum, pulling her close against him. He felt her fingernails graze his scalp, and his body responded as if she had touched him much more intimately.

When he pulled away to catch his breath, he asked, “Are you suggesting we shag in this ...” – looking around – “storage room?”

“Well, I wasn’t thinking shag. At least, not exactly.” He didn’t have to wonder long at what she meant, as she unashamedly dropped to her knees in front of him. Her hands gripped his hips, and she leaned forward and placed a prim kiss on his clothed erection, then looking up at him with a smile, she unfastened his trouser button and rasped the zip down.

“Rose,” he said sort of helplessly, unsure of what he was planning to follow that up with. He very much wanted this – was a little bit ashamed by how much he wanted it. “You don’t need to ...”

“Don’t you want me to?” she asked.

“Yes, but—”

“Good, because I really want to do this,” she said simply, pulling his trousers down and then carefully freeing him from his pants before she pulled those down too. 

She took his erection in one hand and closed her lips around the tip, teasing him with her tongue. With a gasp at the sensation, the Doctor’s head fell back with a thunk against the wall, his hands clasping and unclasping uselessly at his sides. Rose sucked his cock further into her mouth and began a slow rhythm in and out, her tongue tracing the underside at the same time that she worked him with her lips.

“You ... you ... ahhh, yes,” he muttered, reaching for her hair and then jerking his hand back quickly. He didn’t have a lot of experience with this particular sex act, but the Doctor was fairly certain that grabbing Rose’s head and fucking her mouth would be considered rude. He was so tense, holding himself carefully still, that his back started to hurt.

Rose’s eyes cut up to him, and then she reached out and took one of his hands and placed it on the back of her head. His fingers curled into her hair of their own accord. She caressed his hip with her free hand, then she pulled off with a wet pop. “Relax and enjoy this,” she said softly.

His breathing was very fast. “Oh, I am enjoying it,” he panted, looking down at her wet mouth.

She squeezed the base of his cock with the hand that still held him. “You won’t choke me, I’ve got you,” she said with another squeeze. “So relax.” Then she took him into her mouth again, the heat of it contrasting with his cooling flesh causing him to groan. He followed her instruction, letting his muscles loosen a bit. He even allowed his hips to move shallowly with the rhythm she had set up, his hand moving from Rose’s hair to the side of her face, his other hand mirroring it on the other side. He could feel her jaw working, her mouth sucking, and everything she was doing felt amazing.

Without warning, the Doctor found himself on the edge of climax. “I ... Rose, I’m ... close,” he managed to say through gritted teeth, hoping she had enough time to pull away if she wanted to. She didn’t seem to; she only sped up, and the Doctor watched in helpless fascination as he came and she swallowed. She kept her mouth on him until he started to soften, and then she released him gently. As he leaned against the wall trying to recover, Rose pulled his pants and trousers back up, taking care that his penis was tucked away before doing up the zip and button. Then she stood up, a smile on her face, and wrapped her arms around him.

“I owe you one,” he whispered into her hair.

“Don’t worry, I’ll collect tonight,” Rose said, looking pleased with herself. The Doctor took her face in his hands and kissed her, tasting himself in her mouth. 

“Thank you, that was ...” he stopped, at a rare loss for words.

“You don’t have to thank me, I liked it. A lot.” She flushed and kissed him again. “We should probably get back out there,” she said against his lips after a long, nonverbal moment. 

“Yeah.” He was reluctant to let her go, but he supposed she was right. “You’re wonderful. Please don’t ever leave me,” he rushed on, “even if I do something monumentally stupid.”

“What on Earth have you done?”

“Nothing yet, just preparing for the future,” he said with a sheepish grin.

 

*** 

 

Jackie was drunk.

The meal was over, and the Doctor was standing out on the terrace, looking up at the sky. He turned and watched Jackie as she wobbled over to a deck chair and dropped into it, wine sloshing out onto her trouser leg.

“Are the stars the same here?” she asked him. “I never knew them well enough to be able to tell.”

“Yes,” he answered. “At least, now that the timeline has healed itself from what Davros was going to do.”

“That was awful. Stars going out. End of the world, everyone said, and Pete and Rose and Mickey working round the clock. I thought the exhaustion might kill her before the world ended.” She gave him a hard look, as if he were responsible. He supposed, looked at more than one way, he was. “Even Tony knew something was wrong.”

“I’m surprised you could leave him to cross universes.”

Jackie sighed heavily. “Maybe it was the wrong thing to do, I don’t know. But if the universe ended, me staying with Tony wouldn’t’ve done either of us any good, would it?”

“Suppose not.”

“And I had Rose to think about. I knew once she found you – or, the other you, whatever – she wouldn’t be coming back. I had to at least say goodbye.”

“I’m sorry,” the Doctor told her.

“What for?”

“I took her from you. I didn’t consider ... I never considered people’s families.”

Jackie shrugged, her wine glass tipping precariously. “It’s all water under the bridge. I’ve hated you, sure enough, but you’re the reason Rose is who she is today. Saved the universe. Goes to meetings with the President!” She smiled with pride. “Never thought I’d see the day. You caused us a lot of hurt, Doctor, but without you, I wouldn’t be here with Pete. And my sweet Tony wouldn’t even exist. So I thank you for that, I do.”

He smiled at her. “You’re welcome, Jackie.”

“I know she’s angry with him, the other Doctor, for what he did, bringing her back here and leaving her. Rose is young still, and she’s in love, been in love for years with someone she thought she’d probably never see again, and that can give a person tunnel vision. Make them selfish. But I think she’ll see, someday, he did the right thing. For all of you.”

The Doctor didn’t comment. A part of him believed her, but another part couldn’t fathom that being separated from his TARDIS was in the same galaxy as the right thing. Much less saddling Rose with his care and feeding for the rest of their lives.

“I know you love her,” Jackie continued. “I know he does too, that you’ve always loved her. The pair of you’ll work it out.”

“Yeah,” he said gruffly, uncomfortable discussing his feelings for Rose with her mother.

“I know I can’t know what you’re going through, really. I mean, who could? Being split off into an extra person, and then stuck in a whole different universe, without your ship, or any way to—”

“Yes, Jackie, thanks. I’m aware.”

She looked chastened. “Sorry. But if there’s anything either Pete or I can do to help, let us know. You’re part of the family, I hope you know that.”

His eyes felt suspiciously moist at Jackie’s words, and he swallowed a lump in his throat, remembering how happy he had been sharing Christmas dinner with her so long ago. “Thanks, Jackie. That really does mean a lot.”

 

*** 

As he lay on his stomach, his head buried between Rose’s thighs, her fingers clutching at his hair and her moans filling the room, the Doctor thought that of all the domestic things he’d done that day – cooking breakfast, spending time with Rose’s parents, playing with Tony – _this_ was definitely his favourite. 

Rose reached orgasm quickly, her fingernails on his scalp causing a delicious pleasure-pain sensation that made his cock twitch. After she relaxed, he crawled up her body, and he watched her watching him lick his lips.

“You’re very good at that,” she said, her voice hoarse. 

“Why, thank you,” he responded, trying to sound smug but failing when her hand grasped his erection and stroked. He gasped and his eyes fell closed, and when he opened them he saw that Rose was reaching for a condom from the nightstand.

He wanted to make love to her slowly, perhaps allow Rose time to climax again, but by the time he was buried inside her, he couldn’t resist the temptation to thrust hard and fast, taking what he needed. Rose wrapped her legs around him, her hands clutching at his arse. Tasting her had brought him closer than he would have thought possible, and as he came, his cries were muffled against her mouth.

He lay awake for a long time afterward, watching Rose sleep. She seemed impossibly beautiful in that moment, her hair spread out on the pillow, her face scrubbed clean of makeup, her breasts rising and falling with each breath. He felt a stab of pity, suddenly, for his counterpart across the Void, who had never gotten to see her this way.

Still wide awake, he eventually got up, pulled on some clothes, and left the bedroom. He sat on the sofa, looking around at the doors and carpets, the boundaries of his life now. He tried not to look too far ahead in the future; facing the prospect of decades on Earth, even with Rose, was terrifying and disorienting. Instead he only looked ahead to the next day, the next week. 

He wasn’t sure how long he sat there thinking before he dozed off. He woke up in the morning to see Rose, leaning over him where he’d stretched out on the sofa. She kissed him, and together they made plans for another day.


End file.
